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Ashley Shoots the Union Man
Ashley R. Halford
1 Jun 1870 - 23 May 1949
The bare bones of this story had been told to me over the years by my Dad and by the son of the Mr Halford in the story, my Great Uncle Ray. Great Grandfather Ashley and Uncle Ray were carpenters. They worked as a two or three man crew and were being threatened by union organizers that if they didn't join the union they would find that they wouldn't be able to keep building and remodeling houses. Over a period of a month or so, several of their projects had been vandalized. Ashley, a cantankerous old fella when he needed to be - he was 65 years old at the time of the shooting - didn't take kindly to such shenanigans. He decided he would have to take matters into his own hands and so began sleeping in the house on which they were currently working. One night, sure as a dog wags its tail, all hell broke loose. The image of my Great Granddad charging down those stairs, blasting away with a revolver in each hand, sends me into gales of laughter. Thank the gods and goddesses that he didn’t kill anybody.
The part of the story I didn’t know was the end and I had long been looking for a newspaper report or trial transcript that would tell me how Ashley managed to keep from going to jail because I knew that he hadn’t.
A lesson for us all: always be on the look-out for falling bricks, as it was quite by accident that a few weeks ago I found this newspaper report just sitting there waiting for me in the Ancestry newspaper archives. It was printed in the Edwardsville Intelligencer on February 11, 1937.
Moral: Dumb luck is better than no luck at all.
Ashley Puts Manford on the Map
Ashley wasn't always a curmudgeonly old cuss. This story and the little bit following tell us something about another part of him. He seemed to have a bent toward civil service as had his own Granddad and his son, my Grandpa Roy.
Ashley’s Grandfather Jonathan A. Halford filed the papers for the establishment of a Post Office in Blueville, IL. Blueville, about 20 miles southeast of Springfield, was little more than a stagecoach stop between Springfield and Vandalia and was later subsumed by the village of Edinburgh. Jonathan served as Postmaster twice: one term in 1855 - the post office's first - and another in 1863, with one of his sons serving four terms in between.
Ashley had his own desire for a post office for the tiny little community where he lived and operated a grocery supply business. According to the story, Ashley walked the countryside in 1898 to gather petition signatures which were then sent to Washington, DC. After he built the mail slots, pigeon holes, and mailing window, the request was approved and the name Manford was chosen. Ashley served as the first postmaster, his term beginning on this very day of February 10, 112 years ago.
Hyperbole was a apparently a requirement for writing special interest stories in small town newspapers back in the day. Perfect example and my favorite part of the piece: For several years, Manford prospered and the population became about 15. Manford was a prominent name on the map of Illinois
Moral: Prominence is where you find it.
Ashley On Progressive Ticket
The Decatur Review, Aug 7, 1914
It would seem that Ashley was somewhat, at least, a political creature and a follower of President Teddy Roosevelt. I'm not sure how political he was but I think he was quite so. It was said in his obituary that "he liked to talk about the early settlers who struggled amid hardships and compared these favored citizens with those who today find themselves enjoying so many of life's material things -- and getting them without labor." More on The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Party
Ashley got the 99% thing a hundred years ago.
It was also noted that he "walked great distances in his late years, and seemed to like it. He used to ride a bicycle around the countryside, and made the trip to Ramsey many times, over roads and hills no human would dare attempt." ET, phone home!
What I do know, because my Great Uncle Ray told me so, was that Ashley loved living in the beautiful rolling hills and vales of south/central Illinois but that he was totally averse to farming. He did anything and everything to avoid it which might also account for his desire to serve the public. When his two sons were old enough to handle the work horses, they drove the wagons and did the farm work. Over the many years Ashley was variously a house painter, carpenter, grocery salesman, superintendent of the "shubbery" department of the Anna State Hospital, and worst of all, worked at the Roundhouse of the L&M Railroad in Edwardsville, IL, where he worked at the truly awful and dangerous job of crawling into the fireboxes to check the flues. He really hated farming.
Moral: The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the road.
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So how have things been going for you this week? I really do hope that if you haven't been searching newspapers for your genealogical delight then you really ought to give it a try. Once I found this story on my G-Granddad, I looked at what Ancestry had on my Grandfather Roy. I remember when he ran for County Supervisor since I helped him campaign (he didn't win) but I didn't know that he had also put in papers for the position of County Sheriff but pulled them to run for Supervisor.
I haven't even really got started on going thru these newspaper archives. As wonderful as it is to find your ancestors in print, reading what else was happening at the time is equally fascinating and gives that all important context!
The floor is yours.
